Epics of India

Image: Feedback by Gerd Altmann at  PublicDomainPictures.net I've always had mixed feelings about receiving praise. Of course it's feels good when someone acknowledges your hard work, but it usually doesn't start a conversation. It has been my experience (which is mostly in face to face discussions) that praise isn't usually followed up with a conversation going into detail about why something or other worked and how it affected the work as a whole. Instead simple praise usually leads to smiles and thanks, but not a lot of useful feedback for the future. Even though I feel this way about receiving praise myself, I still usually do it when asked for feedback by someone else, so I'm going to try to apply some of what I read this week in the future. Image by Tumisu at pixabay In both of the articles I read there was a focus on providing praise based on the process which I think is more constructive because it can be used to inform the process the next time a...

Image: WikiMedia Commons Most of my experience receiving criticism comes from my time as a ballet dancer. In ballet, dancers generally crave constructive criticism from their teachers, choreographers, ballet masters, and peers because it is very difficult even with mirrors or video recordings to know what you look like while you're dancing. Since constant criticism is so imperative to a dancer's development they are taught from a very young age to appreciate the feedback, and as a dancer you learn very quickly that criticism is much more valuable than praise. As William  Treseder  says in  "Using Harsh Feedback to Fuel Your Career,"  criticism is an investment in your continued improvement. No one is going to take the time to give constructive criticism to someone they don't think can improve, so as a dancer when someone would take the time to give me a personalized correction part of me took it as a vote of confidence from them (the other parts of me got u...